Easy rider for disadvantaged

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 5/26/16

Last December when the officers of the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), were discussing “out of the box” ways to raise money for lobbying efforts for TRIO programs, Tracy Karasinski, …

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Easy rider for disadvantaged

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Last December when the officers of the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), were discussing “out of the box” ways to raise money for lobbying efforts for TRIO programs, Tracy Karasinski, 49, secretary of the organization, offered to ride her motorcycle from her Rhode Island home to Washington, D.C. for the May board meeting.

Karasinski, also Dean of the Office of Opportunity and Outreach at the Community College of Rhode Island, made a formal proposal in January that if the group could raise $1,000 she’d make the trip, and within 24 hours they had beaten their goal.

Although she wasn’t “born on a motorcycle,” both Karasinski’s father and grandfather rode motorcycles and would often take her for rides. In college she bought her own and has been riding ever since.

For the nearly 400-mile one-way trip Karasinski rode her 2009 BMW F800ST motorcycle, leaving Sunday, May 15 and returning May 24, raising more than $2,600.

For Karasinski the interstate is “boring” on a motorcycle, so she opted to take the scenic route to Washington, which took about eight or nine hours. She tracked her miles, and by the end of the round trip she had logged 1,099 miles.

“For me to travel the off-beaten path on my motorcycle is so much fun, it’s an adventure,” Karasinski said. “There is no better way to experience this country than on a motorcycle.”

Schuberth North America supported Karasinski, who has severe hearing loss, with a specialized helmet communication system, which worked with her hearing aid. Alongside raising money, Karasinki wanted her ride to raise awareness not only of the COE, but also for TRIO programs for low-income, first generation and disabled college students.

The COE is a national organization with the goals of expanding access to postsecondary education for these vulnerable populations. COE works with colleges and universities across the country to promote nearly 3,000 TRIO programs, a set of federally funded college opportunity programs for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The programs began with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” with the programs Upward Bound, Talent Search and Student Support Services (SSS), all of which encourage and support disadvantaged students to and through higher education.

“Providing access to education is something I am very passionate about. These programs have survived for 50 years because they work; they’re effective,” Karasinski said.

Karasinski first became involved in TRIO programs when she was hired by CCRI as a counselor for students with disabilities, becoming more and more involved as time went by.

CCRI has three different TRIO programs, the Rhode Island Educational Opportunity Center, Educational Talent Search and SSS. Karasinski estimated that a TRIO program in one-way or another has touched 5,000 CCRI students, or one-third of the student body.

Although there are many initiatives addressing the same issues, Karasinski said TRIO programs have a “proven track record” and deserve more local, state and federal investment.

For example, students part of the SSS program are retained at a far greater rate than national averages. About 86 percent of SSS students in a two-year institution continued to their second year versus 65 percent of those not within the program. For a four-year institution, 94 percent of SSS students compared to the national average of 79 percent.

Especially in Rhode Island, Karasinski says, we need the “policy commitment and financial investment.”

She said that our low income, first generation and disabled student are being “left behind.” Only 38 percents of low-income high school students attend college right after graduation, where 81 percent of students from the highest income quartile do. Similarly, once enrolled, disadvantaged students earn their degrees “at a rate that is less than half of that of high income peers,” 21 versus 45 percent.

“That’s a waste of potential that our country simply cannot afford,” Karasinski said.

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